Master's Degree in Editing – Curriculum

See the Detailed Curricula of the Montage Program

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Montage Workshop; Tutorial

The Montage workshop will accompany you throughout all six semesters of your journey towards obtaining the skills of a professional film editor. The workshop is a space dedicated to intensive collaboration between the mentor and students. In the workshop, you will address the principal issues of the art of editing: narrating through the editing composition, combining sound with image, mastering the differences between a documentary and a fiction film in terms of methods, and many other tasks. In the last year, you will be able to consult your mentor regarding your final project.

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Elementary 16mm Film

This unique course focuses on the actual film stock and you will receive rare hands-on experience with this type of work. Based on a detailed storyboard, you will shoot a brief sketch using a 16mm camera and including the soundtrack, and then on the flatbed you will transform this footage into a film story. Doing so, you will use the basic editing methods (parallel montage, cross editing, work progress, line of an action rule etc.).

Script Editing – Short and Feature Film + Projections and Analyses

Examples of the leading works in film history with a detailed explanation will show you how a story is told by film. The course will show you how a particular plot can be processed with film narration in various genres, periods and cinema traditions. You will consider the principal building blocks of a (good) story and the ways to transfer it to a film screen.

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Grammar of the Film Language

You will learn to efficiently use the principal elements of the film ‘language’ – when, how and for what purpose these elements are used. To conclude the course, you will get your own assignment – you will be asked to develop the way to ‘articulate’ a specific scene in the screenplay in the film language.

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Film Theory

The course uses film theory as a tool to better understand the various methods of film narration and ways of thinking about film. Armed with the semiotic theory, you will be able to analyze film structure and its components, think about film composition as a whole, and understand how both past and current film greats use the film language.

Character

The editing workshop is the crucial place where each film character is created. The editor is (co)responsible for the final presentation of a character on the screen. In the course, you will study the human psyche, behavior, and a nature of decision-making. In the final hands-on exercise, you will work as the director to gain a practical understanding of his part of the creative process of building of a character and the importance of the cooperation between the actor, the director and the editor in interpreting a character.

Archetype

This course goes to the roots of the civilization, revisiting the oldest narrations of religions and cultures and showing how the relatively young film art form reflects thousands of years old stories on eternal topics (the Good, the Evil, Paradise, Death, Revenge, Hero, Anti-hero, God…).

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Narrative Film Editing Practice

This hands-on exercise is focused on editing skills. Your task will be to process various scenes from the raw footage. The exercise includes lecturing and discussions. As a result, you will master editing as a discipline that has two sides to it – being a craft as well a unique art form. Aside from technical aspects, editing also has aesthetic qualities that play a key role in creating and finalizing a film.

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Editing Cooperation

In this course you will get to prove your editing skills in practice as a member of a crew of schoolmates backed by FAMU Studio. At the end of your work, there will be a completed film and a wealth of experience with the process of creating a film while cooperating with the director and the other members of the film crew.

Professional Internship

You will take part in a workshop or a seminar outside the FAMU environment at least one or two times. You will get an opportunity to work under the leadership of internationally acclaimed tutors during festivals, seminars and masterclasses. We usually collaborate with the following festivals and workshops: ExOriente, IFF Jihlava, PAF Olomouc, MidPoint, and Dok.Incubator, European Editing Masterclass...

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Consulting and a Second Opinion

Consultations will offer you a different view of your work. You will improve and progress with the feedback from experienced tutors, lecturers and film professionals who will lead you with the help of their hands-on artistic experience and teaching abilities.

Application requirements

The application requirements consist of 11 assignments. Bare with us, we will help you throughout the process. However, only completely submitted applications will be accepted into further process.

First of all you need to obtain a login and a password. Which you will be given when sending a request to montage@famu.cz.

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